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George Hosato Takei was born on April 20, 1937, in Los Angeles, California. During his childhood, he and his family were sent to World War II internment camps for Japanese Americans. It was a miserable time, but at least George was too young to understand that and was content enough under the circumstances. It was there that young Takei's desire to act was born: the camp would screen Japanese movies for the internees, and there would be a single man off to the side of the projection screen, called in Japan a Benshi, providing an English dubbed voice for all the characters. Takei wanted to be that guy. You can read about his experiences in the graphic autobiography he wrote on it, They Called Us Enemy.

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Returning to Los Angeles after this, Takei and his family endured residual hatred for Japanese-Americans that lingered after World War II; they also moved into a primarily Latino neighborhood, where Takei picked up fluency in Spanish. He would go on to minor in Latino studies in college.

In the 1960s he made appearances on shows like Mission: Impossible and The Twilight Zone, and he got some movie parts (Walk, Don't Run). But it was his groundbreaking role as Hikaru Sulu on Star Trek that made him a cultural icon, as one of the first and only non-stereotypical Asian characters on mainstream American television. Reportedly every Asian-American actor wanted the role, since Sulu had no accent, didn't do (Asian) martial arts,note Sulu had an interest in fencing, which may or may not be considered a martial art (depending on whether he did sport fencing or historical European fencing or both), but no matter what, fencing definitely isn't Asian. and was not a crude caricature (remember: this was more or less contemporary with the yellowface characters in Breakfast at Tiffany's and Charlie Chan).

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However, when Takei took some time off to appear in the John Wayne film, The Green Berets, prepared 2nd season Trek plots that would have featured Sulu were reworked to put the new character, Pavel Chekov, in that spotlight. That was initially a cause for some friction for Takei with the new castmember, Walter Koenig, but they soon settled their differences and became close friends as their characters became an iconic pair at the helm of the USS Enterprise.

Takei campaigned heavily to helm a TOS-era spinoff, Excelsior (named after Sulu's own Excelsior-class starship), but 'twas not to be. However, he would go on to portray Sulu in Star Trek: The Animated Series, in six subsequent Star Trek movies, and led the Excelsior into action in Star Trek's 30th Anniversary special, "Flashback" (Star Trek: Voyager). He also co-starred in an episode of the fan work Star Trek: New Voyages.

After Star Trek, he ran for City Council in Los Angeles, losing by only about 1500 votes.note In one of those odd circumstances, the race that led stations in the area that were planning to air reruns of Star Trek or episodes of The Animated Series to delay the airing so as not to fall afoul of the Fairness Doctrine, on the grounds that Takei's appearance and especially his voice were simply too recognizable not to have an impact. However, his civic hopes were not in vain, as he would later be appointed to the board of directors of the Southern California Rapid Transit District. He also took part in the political crusade to hold America to account for the state-sponsored repressions of World War II, leading to an official apology and monetary compensation.

In 2006, he officially came out of the closet as a gay man, although many of his friends, family, and coworkers had long known this (for instance, by their account, pretty much the entire cast of Star Trek knew or at least strongly suspected, but never said anything). In 2008, he married his partner of twenty years, journalist Brad Altman. Takei continues to be an advocate for civil rights, gay rights and Asian-American issuesnote Who finds President Donald Trump's treatment of Islamic and Latin-American populations all too familiar. In 2012, he starred in the musical Allegiance, which deals with World War II internment of Japanese Americans. He has also protested the Race Lifting of Asian characters in Hollywood adaptations such as The Last Airbender and AKIRA.

He has a huge Facebook following. By March 2012, his page had nearly 1.4 million followers. The page surpassed 5 million followers late in 2013. By mid 2018 he'd doubled that to over 10 million followers. He has been a semi-cast member of The Howard Stern Show since the show's move to satellite in 2005, officially the show's announcer and sits in for week-long stints when he's in New York.

In 2015, Allegiance opened on Broadway with Takei in the dual role of the present day Sam Kimura and "Ojii-san" (Grandfather) in the flashback to the 1940s.

Becoming the Boast: His famous "shirtless fencer" scene from Star Trek was originally meant to be done with a Japanese sword. But Takei (in addition to wanting to avoid Asian stereotypes) was a big fan of old swashbuckling films of the Errol Flynn type, so he lied and told producers he was a skilled fencer, despite never having fenced in his life, to get to use a fencing sword instead. After it was agreed, he immediately took up fencing classes to pull off a good showing.

Camp Gay: When he's Adam Westing. He will also not hesitate to discuss his love of musical theater, acknowledging it as being fitting with the stereotype.

On an episode of Conan he appeared as part of an infomercial for a service to help people come out to their family. He ended his part saying "And if any of you mother*beep*ers gives him any *beep* I will come back here and *beep*! Your! *beep*! Up!

Everybody Knew Already: While the general public may have not known until he came out, George's sexuality was an open secret among Trekkers since the seventies. His husband Brad was usually by his side at cons, and he would answer "Yes" if asked directly by fans. Takei has also said that he would bring his partners (at that time) to TOS parties and no-one ever said anything.

It's "Ta-kay" not "Ta-kai" as he delighted in pointing out to William Shatner during the latter's roast.

"My name is George Ta-kay. Not Ta-kai, as you've insisted on pronouncing it for the last forty years! Remember: Ta-kaaayyyyy. Like in ''toupeé''."

In an earlier interview, Takei noted that "takai" is the Japanese word for "expensive" and that he was trying to convince his agent to promote a name change.

Lust Object: During a bit on Stern, fell completely in lust with skateboarder/Mixed Martial Artist/radio show host Jason Ellis when he ended up naked in the studio, to the point of not being able to talk at first, and then not being able to shut up about him.

"During the next few days, people walking past my dressing room may have wondered what sort of nefarious activity might be going on inside that was making the portable structure rock with such sensuous rhythm. Whatever wild imaginings they might have had, the truth was that I was pumping up the pectorals for my shirtless fencing scenes with a conscientious push-ups regimen."

"No person, let alone an elected school official, whatever their personal or religious beliefs, should ever wish death upon another human being. You apologized for your 'poor choice in words', but you are always going to be a total douchebag."

Too Soon: He posted a photo of the Enterprise crashed in the sand with the caption "Go home, Sulu; You're Drunk." on Facebook, apparently unaware that on the same day a plane crash in San Francisco (the location of Starfleet Headquarters coincidentally) left two dead and many injured. Takei either didn't hear about the tragedy or didn't put the two together in his mind, but took the post down as soon as he realized it. invoked

What Could Have Been: Before Leonard Nimoy was cast, he was supposed to appear as himself in The Simpsons episode "Marge vs. the Monorail", but he refused to be on anything that satirized public transportation, as he's an advocate of it. invoked

Word of Gay:invokedInverted. After he came out of the closet, many people assumed that Takei's character Sulu must also be gay. But Takei himself has insisted in interviews that Sulu was/is/will be straight. He was reportedly disappointed at the announcement that Sulu is gay in Star Trek Beyond, saying that he would have preferred for them to introduce a new LGBT character. In the original timeline, Sulu has a daughter, and is portrayed as being straight.

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